Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins (34 page)

Such was their domestic confusion, however, that Sabine arrived at the railway station a day earlier than they had been anticipating. Hildegard could not understand how they could have made such a mistake. It just showed, she told Sidney, how full their lives were and how impractical it would be if he decided to play a part in any investigation into the school explosion. Fortunately (or, perhaps not, Sidney conjectured silently) Canon Christopher Clough had shared the same train up from London, and had introduced himself to Sabine without, of course, revealing that he was well known as the local Lothario, a man whom one of the cathedral cleaners had recently dubbed ‘the Casanova of the Cloisters’.

He staked his claim quickly, carrying Sabine’s suitcase from the station, taking her over the meadows on the scenic route to the cathedral, and offering to help show her the ropes whenever she was ready. Sabine had replied that she had no interest in knots but she was grateful that Canon Clough had been so attentive.

‘I’ll bet he was,’ Sidney murmured to himself.

Sabine was an athletic-looking girl with large blue eyes, a cheerful face, and shoulder-length blonde hair that was held in place by an Alice band. She was dressed in a printed rayon blouse and blue jeans that appeared a little tight for her, and she looked more like Hildegard’s niece than an employee, sent to England to do a bit of growing up after disappointing exam results and a disastrous first love affair.

Anna had refused to come out of her room on the au pair girl’s arrival. She was busy adding to the model farm that had already taken over all the floor space and could not be disturbed by anyone tidying or hoovering. Her recent request for a hamster was only likely to make things in the child’s already overcrowded bedroom considerably worse.

Hildegard showed Sabine round the house and helped her unpack as Sidney made the tea and laid out a few biscuits. The cake that had been planned for tomorrow had not been started, and he knew that he would have to tread carefully with his wife and not even joke that this early arrival might in any way be her oversight.

He was just allowing himself to feel almost pleased with the way he had managed to keep the great ship of his family afloat, concentrating on his duties as a father and a priest, when the mood was broken by a visit from the Millingham headmaster.

‘We don’t know what caused the unfortunate incident,’ Geraint Rogers began. ‘The preliminary suggestion from the fire brigade is that someone left the gas on.’

‘Deliberately or accidentally?’

‘To cause that kind of explosion, every Bunsen burner in the room would have to have been fully open. That’s more than an oversight. Our Head of Chemistry, Mr Paine, is a chain-smoker, everyone knows that, and the room is powered by electricity, so the light switch may have been tampered with. Anyone entering the room with a naked flame, such as a cigarette, or even simply turning on the lights could have triggered the explosion. The labs were, in effect, booby-trapped.’

‘And was Paine the intended target?’

‘We do not know, but on Prize Day he was likely to enter the complex first.’

Sidney poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘Not the porter?’

‘The doors were unlocked first thing . . .’

‘And the explosion wasn’t until just before lunch . . .’

‘. . . which means that the perpetrator could have got into the building before the ceremony and left the gas on for three or four hours without anyone noticing. Then, when Paine arrived for Prize Day, the room was primed.’

‘And either he was the intended victim or the whole thing was just a prank to blow the place up and create a bit of an impression on Prize Day. Would you like a biscuit?’

‘I think I’ll wait for the tea.’

‘Would it have required any specialist knowledge?’

The headmaster was depressed. ‘Not really. Our pupils study electrical circuits in their first year. And chemistry teachers are always blowing things up to get the pupils’ attention in class.’

‘But presumably the more dangerous substances are kept under lock and key? I would have thought the Bunsen burners would be too . . .’

‘They will be from now on.’

‘So,’ Sidney continued, ‘you think that this is more than mere carelessness?’ He could hear that Hildegard was about to come downstairs and he didn’t want to be caught in the act of sleuthing.

‘I am afraid so, although we have told the emergency services that someone must have left the gas on by mistake.’

‘And they are satisfied?’

‘At the moment they are pretending to be, but I hope it will remain a school matter rather than anything that might involve an external investigation.’

‘And your insurers will believe you?’

‘We may have to pay for the refurbishment out of our reserves.’

Sidney was surprised. This conversation was going to take longer than he had hoped. ‘You won’t make a claim?’

‘I think we can manage. As I say, we’d rather not have too much of an inquiry.’

‘I see.’ Sidney poured the tea into four mugs. ‘And why are you telling me this?’

‘You do have something of a reputation, Canon Chambers.’

‘You are asking me to conduct some unofficial enquiries?’

‘I’d like to know whether Trevor Paine was the intended victim.’

‘You think the perpetrator was one of the boys or a group of boys? Milk?’

‘Thank you. Everyone thinks it was Pearson. He has a grudge against Paine and he’s already been in trouble this term for staging a mock knife fight in the town centre.’

‘A free spirit, as it were?’

‘Pearson is something of a rebel. But he was playing cricket at the time and he vehemently denies any wrongdoing. He even said that if he
had
been responsible he would have made a better job of it.’

‘And you believe him? Sugar?’

‘Two. He makes a valid point. One of his ancestors discovered nitroglycerin and his family ran the cordite factory at Gretna during the Great War. He’s also owned up to anything he’s done wrong in the past. In fact he’s rather proud of his misdemeanours.’

‘But you haven’t expelled him?’

‘He’s going to be captain of the cricket team next year and we can’t afford to lose him. Besides, he’s done nothing that warrants automatic expulsion. He knows just how far to push us. There are other complications . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘His grandparents are on the board of the Pelouze Trust . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘. . . which gave a generous donation to the science block. Pearson’s hardly likely to want to blow up a building his family helped fund.’

Sidney changed tack. ‘Did the injured chemistry teacher have any other enemies?’

The headmaster tested his tea. He looked as if he didn’t like the taste, but it was what he was about to say that concerned him more. ‘There have been insinuations; complaints even.’

‘What kind?’ Sidney asked.

‘Mr Paine has, in the past, been over-enthusiastic in disciplining boys . . .’

‘Corporal punishment?’

‘Indeed. “The cane of Paine”.’

‘And the accusation is, perhaps, that he enjoys punishing boys rather too much?’

‘It’s unfounded, I’m sure of it.’

‘But it could be that a boy who had been at the receiving end was responsible for the explosion, or it could even have been a parent, eager to exact a kind of revenge?’ Sidney began to recall a passage from St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians about ‘fire taking vengeance on them that know not God’.

‘It could be,’ the headmaster answered doubtfully. ‘But I am hoping the whole thing is just a prank. That’s why I need your help, Canon Chambers. An inquiry conducted by a sympathetic outsider, a person who has guaranteed impartiality, who is not the police, but recognised by them if we run into difficulty.’

‘I’m not sure . . .’

Hildegard called from upstairs. ‘I HOPE THE TEA IS READY.’

Geraint Rogers could tell that it was time to conclude. ‘I have already talked to the dean. I have his blessing.’

‘You have been very thorough . . .’

‘I don’t want anything else to happen.’ He took one last sip of tea and asked what to do with the cup.

‘I’ll wash that up,’ said Sidney.

‘All this has come at completely the wrong time. I was hoping for promotion. The Millfield job will come up fairly soon. “Boss” Meyer can’t go on for ever. I thought I might have a rather good chance. His father was a clergyman, you know? But after this . . .’

‘I will do my best, Headmaster.’ Sidney could not offer much more, so flummoxed was he by his guest’s delusional ambition.

Upstairs, Anna was teaching Sabine ‘Old Macdonald Had a Farm’.

Geraint Rogers opened the front door. ‘I can assure you of every assistance. I don’t want this to get out of hand. We are both aware of how rumours can fly. Consequently I would rather we kept this between ourselves. I think I can deal with the police. We’ll put it down as an accident.’

‘Even though it wasn’t?’

‘I was going to let you decide. Then perhaps I, rather than anyone else, can take the appropriate action. Until that time, I hope I can rely on your discretion.’

‘Of course,’ Sidney replied, closing the door and wondering how on earth he was going to keep anything secret as soon as he started talking to the pupils.

Inspector Keating had been away in London, watching England beat Mexico 2–0 in the World Cup, so when the two friends met for drinks Geordie was more concerned with football than explosives. It was bound to be pyromaniac boys, he thought, and complained, as he had done so often before, about private schools being a law in their own right.

‘It’s just like the university,’ he pronounced. ‘They think their rules take precedence over the laws of the land. You can imagine the kind of pupils it turns out. They assume that they don’t have to bother with the rest of us.’

‘Not all of them are like that.’

‘You are bound to be on their side, Sidney. You went to the same kind of place.’

‘Marlborough is, I think you’ll find, a superior establishment.’

‘Well, it’s the word “superior” that annoys me.’

Keating took a hefty swig from his pint and wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Just because the parents can afford to give them a head start the boys start believing they are entitled to anything.’

Sidney finished his pint and pointed at Geordie’s, offering replenishment. His friend nodded in assent. ‘Now is not the time to discuss the British educational system.’

‘Or its defects. No wonder someone wanted to blow the whole place up.’

When he returned with the drinks, Sidney asked if they could discuss the choice of the chemistry lab as the venue for the Prize Day sabotage. Clearly this had the advantage of available materials and the possibility of disguising crime as an accident, but an act of violence might just as easily have been arson in the cricket pavilion or food poisoning in the kitchens. Could there be a particular reason for an attack on the chemistry labs and was Trevor Paine the intended target?

Keating asked if the teacher had any obvious enemies.

‘He has, apparently, already made an accusation. I am going to see him in hospital.’

‘I’m not sure about you getting involved in all this, Sidney. That school has an unsavoury history with the clergy.’

‘What do you mean?’

Keating had the appearance of a man who was reluctant to say what he had to say while simultaneously bursting to spill the beans. ‘I made a telephone call before coming to see you. I guessed this subject might come up.’

‘Please tell me what you know.’

‘This case,’ Keating began, ‘if it is one, may not be entirely unconnected with Trevor Paine’s friend, the Reverend Kevin Charles Warner, the former chaplain; or “Rev Kev” as he was called at Millingham . . .’

‘They informed me that he left the school rather quickly. They implied he had been ill. Was it something different? Did he depart under a cloud?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Then where is he now?’

‘Prison.’

Sidney was appalled. ‘Why did nobody tell me?’

‘I’m sure you can hazard a guess. There had been a great number of complaints about your colleague . . .’

‘He’s not my colleague . . .’

‘Member of your profession, then.’

‘To do with?’

‘The usual. You don’t need a teaching qualification in private education. It’s jobs for the boys. Then they close ranks when it all goes to pot.’

‘But not in this case.’

‘Just about. There had been parental complaints about Rev Kev: interfering with young boys, bullying, and general buggering about. But it took a compromising situation in a public toilet to get him arrested. One of our men was an old boy. Relished the opportunity to see a former teacher get his comeuppance. Not as popular as he thought he was, Rev Kev.’

‘Well, I can’t imagine he’ll be any more so in prison. But what has this to do with Trevor Paine?’ Sidney asked.